


mine to lose (lifeline)

by jayeinacross



Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-30
Updated: 2012-08-30
Packaged: 2017-11-13 04:42:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/499598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayeinacross/pseuds/jayeinacross
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint feels it during the battle. He's on the rooftop when it hits him. That sense of emptiness, some sort of gap that aches to be filled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	mine to lose (lifeline)

**Author's Note:**

> Mentions of major character death, major spoilers for The Avengers.
> 
> For my angst bingo prompt 'captivity'.

Clint feels it during the battle. It takes him awhile; the strange feeling is mixed up with all the confusion of Loki's spell, and it's hard to differentiate. He's on the rooftop, taking fleets down with sharp precision and calling out targets for the others when it hits him. That sense of emptiness, some sort of gap that aches to be filled. Sometimes there'll be short messages from Fury or Hill, and he can hear other SHIELD agents moving and talking in the background, and that’s when Clint realizes what’s missing.

Coulson. Coulson always checks in with Clint, very pointedly trying to set an example for Clint, who disappears onto rooftops and into rafters and ventilation shafts without a word. But Clint hasn’t heard even a hint of that steady voice, and he knows right away that something has happened to his handler.

But the continuing swarms of Chitauri are relentless, and that’s what Clint has to concentrate on right now, though he always keeps an ear out for that voice. He half expects to hear Coulson make some dry remark about getting held up and a quiet aside of “I’m glad you’re okay, Barton,” but there’s nothing.

When Clint gets back on the ground with the others, he automatically falls into step beside Natasha. She takes one look at him and her expression changes; she can tell that Clint has realized that something has happened to Coulson. She lets her hand brush against his, very briefly, and lowers her eyes to the ground.

Loki took control of Clint, seized his head and his heart and twisted them to his own doing, and Natasha won’t tell him how many agents were lost, but Clint doesn’t need a number to know that it was his fault. He was the reason that Loki was able to get into the Helicarrier like he did, and all the while, Clint was forced to watch, completely aware of what he was doing, but unable to stop any of it. 

Clint aims an arrow right between Loki’s eyes, the other Avengers around him, and imagines what it would feel like to let that arrow fly. He wants that release, he wants Loki to suffer, to die, for what he did to Clint. What he did to Natasha, and every other civilian and agent and Avenger he ever went near. What he did to Coulson, because still nobody has told him, but he knows.

But for whichever reason (and there are plenty that Clint can think of - that it’s not what Coulson would want; because he swore he’d left that kind of life behind him; it wouldn’t fix anything - it’s just that he doesn’t know if any of them are true), he doesn’t. Loki doesn’t fight, and SHIELD brings him back in, and Thor takes him back to Asgard.

Loki may be gone, and his cold grip loosened from Clint’s mind, but the chill remains, and Clint’s not sure whether he’ll ever be free of that. What Loki has done to Clint, and Natasha, and Coulson, will remain with them forever.

SHIELD is no better. He works for them, but there aren’t a lot of other options, and they want to chain him, control him, use him, because he’s too dangerous to be let loose. He’s been dragged through the mud so many times, and it was Sitwell that found him, but it was Coulson that drew him out of that.

A month earlier, and it wouldn’t been any better - even worse, perhaps, if Clint had never got to say it - but Coulson would have been just Clint’s handler, something more only in Clint’s mind. Not his to lose, the moment he gained something good, ripped away from him almost immediately.

Coulson and Natasha were his lifelines, and now one of them is gone. He has the Avengers - who will not replace Coulson, nothing could ever do that, but it’s something else that keeps his freedom within reach. They may work with SHIELD, and Fury may have had the idea to bring them together, but it was only Coulson who really managed to achieve that.

The Avengers are dangerous. Not only because of their power, but because they cannot be controlled. Not as individuals, and certainly not as a group. They don’t work for SHIELD. They help them. But they won’t be controlled by them.

Maybe with the Avengers, Clint can tear himself away from SHIELD’s grip. When Tony invites them to live in the rebuilt tower, he doesn’t hesitate. Anywhere’s better than his stale, blank room in the helicarrier. Here, he has people like him. He has...friends. Somewhere he can sleep without waking at every sound, even if his bed is too cold and empty with him alone.

They’ll never forget the sacrifice that Coulson made. Clint will never forget that he’s only here because of Coulson, the only person Clint would ever let catch him.


End file.
